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Comment by discardorama | Hacker News Reader

FTA: "“You see how the thick branches point away from each other? That’s so they don’t block their buddy’s light.”"

I noticed this in some tall trees in the Sequoyah National Park too. I remember thinking to myself: how do they know about the presence of each other?

While many scientists will grimace at the anthropomorphism in the narrative, you have to ask: why can't we use similar terms as ours to describe the trees' interactions? Who is to say that vocalizing some predetermined sounds is the only way to "talk"?

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why can't we use similar terms as ours to describe the trees' interactions?

I haven't read the article yet, but presumably because doing so is inaccurate. The inaccuracy isn't a problem for people sufficiently familiar with the topic that they understand the anthropomorphism, but for people new to the topic confusion ensues unbeknownst to them. Natural selection is a classic example of anthropomorphism leading to people not having the slightest understanding of what they're talking about.

Someone tells me nobody is going to believe the trees actually talk to each other when no humans are within listening distance. It shouldn't make that much of a difference whether you use communicate or talk. What does make a difference is whether people care about the topic, even just a little bit or not at all.

The real question about nonhuman intellogence is not "do trees behave like people", it is " do people behave essentially differently from trees"

That's so smart :)

“You see how the thick branches point away from each other? That’s so they don’t block their buddy’s light.”

Would be nice if there was more info on this. Without any, I would suggest the trees below are growing because of light reaching them as a result of the higher trees' branches facing other directions from some other cause. Presumably the smaller trees sprouted after the taller trees, in which case the above is suggesting the branches of the taller trees changed direction when the young trees arrived, so the branches should have a curve.

I wish I had taken a photo. It looked like a single tree split in half! Except, they weren't right next to each other, but about 12 - 15 feet apart. One tree had all its branches to the left; the other, all to the right.

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